Kyle Schwarber Returns, and It’s Like He Never Left

Kyle Schwarber, shown hitting an R.B.I. single in Game 2, hasn’t missed a beat at the plate despite not playing for 200 days.Credit
Jamie Squire/Getty Images

CHICAGO — The 2014 college baseball schedule sent Indiana University to Surprise, Ariz., for a round-robin event against teams from the Pacific-12 Conference. It coincided with spring training, and the Chicago Cubs opened their Mesa complex to the Hoosiers for batting practice.

The reason was to spend more time with a catcher/outfielder named Kyle Schwarber, who had just hit 18 homers as a sophomore, with a .366 average and more walks than strikeouts. The Cubs’ scouts had rarely, if ever, seen such a short and powerful left-handed swing. Internally, they compared Schwarber to David Ortiz and, jokingly, to Babe Ruth.

What they needed was a clearer picture of the person. The Cubs would be picking fourth in the draft, and as their rebuild accelerated, it would likely be their last high pick for years. If they took Schwarber, they could not miss.

“We spent about an hour and a half with him, and he was great,” said Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations. “He had the best amateur makeup I’d seen since Pedroia.”

For Epstein, the former architect of the Boston Red Sox, there is no higher compliment than a comparison to Dustin Pedroia, who embodied the attitude he wanted for his teams. In 2004, the Red Sox used their first draft choice (a second-rounder) on Pedroia, an infielder from Arizona State. Four years later, Pedroia would have a World Series ring, a Most Valuable Player Award and the critical role of team leader.

Schwarber could be on the same path, with the Cubs chasing their first championship in 108 years. He had two singles, two runs batted in and a walk on Wednesday as the Cubs evened the World Series in Game 2 with a 5-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians.

Yet Schwarber, who tore knee ligaments in an outfield collision on April 7, will not start as the Series shifts to Wrigley Field for Game 3 on Friday night. The teams do not use the designated hitter in National League parks, and Daniel Cooper, the doctor who performed Schwarber’s surgery, did not clear him to play in the outfield.

“Deep down in my heart I really wanted to, but there’s obviously the doubts of the injury,” Schwarber said. “You know, it was a huge injury, and that’s the facts. Not many people get this opportunity that I’m in right now, so I’m embracing this opportunity that I’ve got and I’m going to cheer my teammates on, and when my time comes, I’m going to be ready.”

Schwarber is already something of a medical marvel. Before he started in the Series opener, he had gone 200 days without playing in a major league game. He became the first position player ever to get his first hit of the season in the World Series.

“He should just skip spring training next year,” third baseman Kris Bryant said. “He’ll be fine. Just jump right in the World Series and have success. No big deal.”

If Schwarber looked as if he had never left, there was a reason: He hadn’t. Though he was ruled out from returning this year, Schwarber stayed in Chicago for his rehabilitation. He poured himself into his recovery.

“You walk in our clubhouse and our new weight room has all mirrors,” catcher David Ross said. “And you’d look in there and he’s full sweat by the time I get to the field. So he’s got his day in before we start. He does all his rehab, stays for the game, grinds out the games with us on the bench, cheering guys on, watching video, doing scouting reports. He’s a baseball rat, true and true.”

Photo

Schwarber had 3 hits and 2 R.B.I. in the first two games of the World Series.Credit
Elsa/Getty Images

First baseman Anthony Rizzo said he sometimes told Schwarber to back off, to ease up on the video analysis, to set aside a scouting report now and then. It was useless advice. If the Cubs were at Wrigley, Schwarber wanted to be there, absorbing all he could.

“He’s just a dirtbag of the game,” Rizzo said, meaning it as high praise. “He’s always watching baseball.”

By staying mentally engaged with the team, Schwarber never had to relearn the mind-set of playing. He did not need to ease into his season with weeks of exhibition games, and he did not think that far ahead, anyway.

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“I wanted to dominate the day,” Schwarber said. “It was just a constant grind. There were days I just wasn’t feeling it. My teammates picked me up, and I had some guys come over and say to me, ‘World Series, you’re going to be back,’ things like that. I’d just laugh it off. Then when it came to reality, it was a shock.”

The Cubs had planned to send Schwarber to winter ball, Epstein said, but they worried even that might be too aggressive. Manager Joe Maddon said he never thought of activating Schwarber until the middle games of the National League Championship Series in Los Angeles, when Epstein told him that Schwarber had made so much progress by his six-month checkup that doctors had cleared him to hit.

As the Cubs wrapped up the National League pennant, Schwarber underwent a long, intense weekend, tracking pitches off a machine and playing against prospects in the Arizona Fall League. He made the World Series roster as a designated hitter, and he has kept his composure against a stingy Cleveland staff.

“Hitting the ball is one thing, but you can see he’s not jumpy,” Maddon said. “He’s seeing borderline pitches, staying off a ball; he’s not check-swinging and offering. That’s the part that’s really impressive to me.”

Schwarber showed a hint of this last year, when he hit 16 home runs in 69 games with a .355 on-base percentage. He added five homers in nine National League playoff games, including a mammoth blast that came to rest atop the right-field scoreboard at Wrigley.

Schwarber, who is 6 feet tall and 235 pounds, made 15 starts at catcher last season but played mostly in left field, where he struggled at times. He seems unlikely to ever be graceful in the field, but the Cubs will find a place for his bat.

“He can play left field, and we haven’t ruled out catching, either,” Epstein said. “If you’re asking me would we ever trade him to the American League, the answer is the biggest no possible.”

Schwarber was similarly emphatic after Game 1 in Cleveland about his chances of playing in the field for Games 3, 4 and 5 at Wrigley: There was just no way. He wavered after Wednesday’s win — “Nothing’s set in stone,” Schwarber said — but abided by Cooper’s directive on Thursday.

So the Cubs will use the lineup that rolled to a runaway National League pennant without Schwarber, who will be an imposing bat off the bench. And as long as they win, Schwarber will be happy. At 23, he is already deeply invested in the future of the Cubs, and he felt the connection from that first meeting as a Hoosier in Arizona.

“It just kind of clicked,” Schwarber said. “It was like we had the same beliefs in baseball terms. It’s all about winning, so that’s the only thing that matters.”

Billy Witz contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on October 28, 2016, on Page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Swiftly Reconnecting After 200 Days Gone. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe